


Sunrise

by FuchsiaMae



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2019-08-20 01:11:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16545947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FuchsiaMae/pseuds/FuchsiaMae
Summary: Sunlight is precious when you live underground. Prompted by silverilly.(Originally posted to Tumblr 12/11/16)





	Sunrise

She never meant to become a troglodyte. None of them did. It just happened, so gradually they didn’t notice, like gray hairs or wear on an old dress. Until one day she found streaks of silver at her temples and a hole in her seam, and she hadn’t seen the sun in months. 

Ironic that the most advanced scientific research in the world had them all living in caves, but in a world with no windows, it became easy to let the weeks slip away. Aperture wasn’t bound to nature’s timetable – artificial daylight would last as long as they had science to do. And they always had science to do.

Oh, yes. If ambition meant burning the candle at both ends, Aperture Science would design a candle with eight more ends, build a candlestick to burn them all at once, and invent a way to make the wicks reusable. Sounded like something her boss would say. Not like they needed more light sources – the pale fluorescent strips in the labs lit the place brighter than day. The very important rooms had false windows with glowing landscapes in their frames. Far below, in the botanical wing, masterfully-engineered plants bloomed under real sunlight pumped down from the surface. The indicator lights like colored stars on every piece of equipment, the flickering flames of gas burners. The cheery flower-shaped lightbulb on her desk. 

Outside the observation window, a test subject ventured across a bridge of pure, shimmering blue. She made a mental note to go outside today. 

But one thing led to another, and the artificial day ran long, and by the time she had a moment to herself it was late at night. So she set an alarm. She woke up early, slipped out of the arms of the sleeping man beside her, dressed, and started the long elevator ride to the surface. The long, long elevator ride. She tried not to look at her washed-out reflection in the mirrored elevator wall – the fluorescents were practical, but they did nobody any favors. Finally the doors slid open at the ground floor. 

Outside in the parking lot, alone among the empty cars, she watched the sun rise. 


End file.
